Defence bill likely to house beefed up Cfius provisions

Author: John Crabb | Published: 13 Jun 2018

The Foreign Investment Risk Review Modernization Act
(Firrma) is likely to be tacked on to the National Defense
Authorization Act (NDAA) for the fiscal year 2019 to ensure
smooth passage through Congress later this year.

The consensus in Congress is that reform of the Committee on
Foreign Investment in the United States (Cfius) is necessary,
which begs the question that if the bill reaches a form that
everyone can agree with – why not pass it as a
standalone entity? There are a couple of reasons that
this might not be the preferred solution, according
to Michael Leiter, partner at
Skadden.

"It takes time to pass any bill, which takes away
from other legislative priorities. Folding Cfius into
the 'must-pass' NDAA, especially given the Department of
Defense’s [DoD] strong support for Cfius...